GROUP IS NOW UP! If you wish to join, just post a sample image of how the tutorials have helped you and request to join. I will review them and accept those I feel will remain active!! Until then....ENJOY THE TUTORIALS HERE!

Hey everybody! Welcome! Many of you may be wondering why I am putting this tutorial into the forums and not an official site, WELL....I just wanted it to be easily accessible. This tutorial is thanks to all my friends who have shown enough interest in my work to request this. This goes out to you! *hugs*

Now, let's begin.....

1. To begin, open a window in any green room. Here, I am using my interactive greenshot room, which can be found here. I prefer this room because I am able to put poses into it, such as the one Yaoilover is in.

2. Once your avi is in a desired pose, find a good angle and hit "print screen" on your keyboard. This captures all that is on your computer screen and aids in making better quality stickers.

3. Once you have hit print screen, open up your desired image editing software. Mine happens to be PhotoshopCS2, so that's what you will be seeing here. I like to open a new image, with these dimensions...

You may be wondering why I use such huge dimensions. I like to have room to work with. Plus, I mainly make background stickers, so it's just habit. :p Okay, moving on....

4. Next, go to edit and down to paste. Paste should be one of the FEW options that is highlighted. if it is not available, it didn't catch your screen capture, so you must do "print screen" again. This is what your screen should look like when you are getting ready to paste the image into photoshop...

5. Once the image has been pasted, I like to resize it, making it a little smaller. You may find this process tedious, all the resizing I do, however, I feel...if it's not broken, don't fix it. Sure, it's a few extra steps, but I'd MUCH rather have TOO MUCH room, than to have not enough.

6. Now, we begin working ON the image itself. Go to your eraser tool and right click. This will show you several different types of erasers. I use the magic eraser, as I feel it does an adequate job in erasing much of the background I won't be using, without erasing my whole image.

7. The magic eraser should erase most of what you need gone, however, I also like to touch up the image with the ORIGINAL eraser. Make sure you erase all you won't need, as you don't want it showing up in your sticker later. Once you are finished erasing the background, you should see gray and white checkers in the background. DO NOT be alarmed. This simply means that it will be transparent. Here is what we have so far....

8. If you're satisfied with this, feel free to crop, save, and upload! HOWEVER, if you want to do several extra steps, the sticker will (in my opinion) DEFINITELY be worth the effort. Okay...moving on....

9. If you decide to do more with your sticker, my next step is to duplicate the layer. You can do this by referring to the image below....

10. Once you have done so, you'll want to blur the image. The reason you have duplicated the layer is because you want to create a glow effect, while still leaving the original layer in tact. That way, your picture still has a solid base.

11. You will see a menu pop up with an image of your avi in the preview. Adjust the radius of the blur so that it reads 5.0 pixels. The image of your avi will become distorted and blurry, but DO NOT WORRY. The NEXT step clears that up and makes the sticker look INCREDIBLE.

12. Look to the right where you will see the options of working with "layers, channels, or paths." In that window, click on the down arrow where you see "normal" is the active option. You can use many of these options (and feel free to experiment with them), however, my poison is OVERLAY...as displayed below.

13. As of right now, your image should have a similiar effect as mine does. If so, congratulations, you're doing very well! If not, you're doing great, but maybe you skipped a step. Try going back and reviewing to see what you missed. ^_^

18. Finally, this last step is VERRRRRRRRRY IMPORTANT! You MUST save your image as a .png. That way, the background shows up as transparent. Sure, you can save it as .gif in animation shop, but if you are using photoshop, it is HIGHLY recommended to save it as a .png. ^_^

chances are that you can do the same thing in GIMP, but you may have to download something from GIMPshop.com for it to work right._________________http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escrow
Because knowing is half the battle.

Im just starting out so this is a HUGE thing for me to find. Thank you for taking the time to post this.

But I do have a question....can we use our own products without having to buy them? Like the stickers? Right now thats all I make and I want to be able to use what I create.

Unfortunately, stickers are the only thing you create that you DO have to buy. Everything else, such as scenes, poses, clothes, etc, automatically get sent to your inventory. However, stickers are so easy to make (after much practice), they figured it would have been non-sensical to let something so inexpensive to submit be given away. :p Hope this helps hon!

Okay guys! New tutorial! ^_^ This one will be an extension of my first one. In this one, you will learn how to add shine and glow to your images! To understand THIS tutorial, it is required you know how to do the basics....which is covered in my first tutorial on page one! ^_^ Okay, let's get started....

Okay, this is the image I am starting with. As you can tell, I've already done the steps from the first tutorial to obtain this image. However, notice the jewelry...it seems lifeless and dull. I would like to add a bit of shine to it. Also, I want to add some lighting to my avatar. This is the beginning image...

Once you know your image is merged, you are ready to burn and dodge. First, let me explain what each one does....

Dodge...this tool looks like a pin and makes selected areas of your image BRIGHTER. Works best on light colors. I like to use it on the shiny part of hair, eyes, jewelry, lighter areas of skin, lips, clothes, etc.

Burn...unlike dodge, this tool makes selected areas of your image DARKER. Hence, the name BURN. *tee hee* This tool looks like a hand and is best used on darker shades of skintones, certain areas of hair, backgrounds, etc.

I like to combine these two methods in one image to create a certain lighting effect. I'm sure there are people...hell, I KNOW there are people out there that do this better than me, however, I feel I should share the knowledge I do have about it. haha. After all, a good building starts with a good foundation. :p

Now, with this image, I dodged the jewelry, eyes, lips, and skin, while I burned the hair, and darker areas of skin.

This next tip is IMPORTANT. DON'T use the same "dodge/burn brush size" for every area. For jewelry, I make the brush smaller, as to not make the skin BRIGHT right around the jewelry....here's an example....

Notice how the brush size is 6. That is only 6px...I will be using that for the necklace. Here is a breakdown of what brush sizes of dodge and burn I used for my avatar...The yellow circles with the purple numbers are the areas I used DODGE on, while the green circles with the red writing are the areas I used BURN on. Please take a second to review the image, taking note of where I used each tool....

Please pardon the look of the edges of my avi. Something is wrong with my photoshop and is showing gray around certain edges. *shrugs* Anyways, that's not important, HOWEVER, rest assured this will not always happen to your images.

Feel free to use brushes to add sprakles to your jewelry, eyes, etc. I did that with my Yaoilover necklace and ring. Doing this adds a bit of a touch to your already "specially touched" image. Use a white or light color for the brush of the spark and add an inner and outer glow to create that glowing effect to it. Just make sure to...HAVE FUN! ^_^

Now that you've seen what the burn and dodge tools do, feel free to experiment on your own. This tutorial was NOT made to tell you STEP BY STEP how to do this process, instead, it was made as a GUIDELINE for your creativity. Let your imagination shine through....

Another tutorial, my friends! This one, just like the last one, is a request from people who have reviewed my first tutorial. I hope this helps guys!

In this tutorial, we will be stepping through the process of how to make a nice catalog icon for your stickers. Always remember that while your sticker may be amazing, it is the catalog icon that helps sell it. Many wonderful stickers often get bypassed because the individual does not take the time or does not know how to make them. Let us begin....

Today, I want to make this sexy sticker and sell it in the catalog. However, *gasp* I don't have a catalog icon image for it! Well, that can be easily solved my friend! Let's start from the beginning...Here's the sticker which I wish to sell....

Well, I can't very well just put the image of the sticker up there! I have to dress it up a little. ^_^ Remember, the more time it looks you spent on your catalog icon, the more time the consumers think you spend on your products. By the end of this tutorial, you can spend little time putting your catalog icon together, however, make it look like a work of art. :p

In another window, I will open up my "signature background." This is the background I use for my catalog images. I suggest you have your own design ready to use...that way, you can just add the sticker on top of the background, adjust it and add the top layer (if wanted) with your avi name/logo, etc. Here's my background. I have PRE-sized it so that when I DO resize it in the end, it comes out to be 100x80. REMEMBER...your dimensions MUST be 100x80, or else....your icon won't work. :p I find it is best to PRE-size images and that way, later...it is just two steps per icon. haha.

Once I open the background, I like to resize it...so that the sticker appears clearer when I paste it on there. If you open a background that is too big and then copy and paste the sticker...then resize it to 100x80, it will be ENTIRELY too small. Remember, you don't need the WHOLE sticker on the icon image. A portion will suffice. ^_^

Now, return to the sticker image and choose "SELECT", then scroll to "ALL." This will select all that is in the window for that sticker. I like to do this, because when I paste it, I am able to move it around and adjust to my liking....

Then, resize it. If your image doesn't come out to be exactly 100x80, crop it until it can be resized to that size. Once you have done so, the icon should appear THIS big. I know it's small, but if you do it correctly, you should still see a great amount of detail in it. :p Good luck everyone!

Yay! Another tutorial request! ^_^ I just want to let everyone know to PLEASE let me know if you have a request for a tutorial you would like to see on here. I THOROUGHLY enjoy making them and ABSOLUTELY LOVE seeing all the happy people after they review them.

This next tutorial is how to make a BIGGER avi pic. Have you ever seen people who have HUGE avi pics with soooo much more detail than is allowed in YOURS? Well, I'm about to divulge our secrets on just how EASILY you could have your avi pic look like that.

First, AVOID the account area. If you see THIS....then you're in the WRONG spot.

However, I would like you to scan over this image. Notice how it only allows your image to be 39k. That allows barely ANY detail whatsoever! You're better off just sticking to snapshots for THAT amount! o_O

Okay, now that I've shown you what NOT to do...I want you to visit your own homepage. That's right...you read correctly. Visit your OWN homepage. Your "about me" section is where you want to go. A CRUCIAL part to this tutorial though is you MUST make sure your page is in "edit" mode. To tell if it is, you must see these bars at the top of each panel...one that says "edit" and the other that says, "help."

Since this avi image is WAY below 100k, I could even make it bigger if I wanted! YAY! Just click on the desired image and click "ok." Once done, you will have your new and improved avi pic! Good luck everyone! ^_^

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MORE TUTORIALS TO COME TOMORROW! ^_^ KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR THEM AND LET ME KNOW IF AND HOW THESE ARE HELPING YOU!! ^_^

To answer your questions, I will work on how to do it with Paint Shop, as I also have it...I just got spoiled with Photoshop. :p I will work on that in about 20 minutes (after lunch) haha. I've never worked with Gimp, so I can't help you there, but I'll get to work on figuring it out for Paint Shop. ^_^

Thanks for the information on where else to find that hidden page! I'm sure that will help many others too!